Many moons ago a farming couple of Irish extraction living just west of Sydney had a son named John. He had the traditional depression-era barefoot to school type upbringing, showed a few clues and, after serving in the army in World War Two, he became a chemist. Something of a restless soul, he plied his trade around the place for a bit before heading to Samoa to run a hospital dispensary for a while. This was pre-Fairstar o'course. On return to Australia he chucked in chemisting and became a builder's labourer (a job that you don't see advertised much anymore). At this stage he also started writing. He wrote about being a builder's labourer, about being a chemist in Samoa, about life in the doghouse when your missus gives you the heave-ho, about a stray cat that he found, about opal mining, professional fishing, all sorts of things. Not likely to appear on any list of great world literature, his books were nevertheless very enjoyable, humorous and usually capable of engaging the reader. His first two books were written under the psuedonym of Nino Culotta, and were presented as the experiences of an Italian immigrant in the fifties. In the second book, calles 'Cop This Lot', Culotta goes back to Italy to visit his family and takes a couple of Australian friends with him. One of his friends is talking to Signor Guareschi, who is a friend of Culotta senior and also a communist. They are talking about Culotta senior, who is the village patriarch. When asked how he can be friends with such a man, Guareschi replies "Is bad system. Is many a good man, but is bad system." I tend to feel the same way. I am not any more likely to be friends with anybody because they share the same interests or beliefs that I do. In fact such people tend to shit me off because they are likely to pretend to agree with me even when they don't, just to maintain the appearance of unity. Which is a particularly long-winded way of saying that I like Tony Abbott. OK, so he's an idealogically driven conservative, which is scary, at least as scary as an idealogically driven liberal. I prefer to be a pragmatic 'whatever works in this situation' type of person. OK, so he's a Catholic, who expresses no doubts about the primitive superstitions and bizarre rituals. But he's got class.
OK, so I'm a little busy, so this will be fairly short. Shit, I've wasted time typing that already. Oops, did it again. Anyway, some of you may remember that talked Da Boss into taking a gamble and planting a couple of paddocks into moisture on the off chance that we may get enough water to irrigate them. Well, two (count 'em, two!) days before we either had to plough them in or pay the licence fee for using the genetic material, we got news from Sunwater that we would be able to pump 800megs out of the river, starting in a week. In an average year, this would be just enough to water the extra paddocks. In an ordinary year. Unfortunately this season has been hotter than (Insert unobtainable object of desire here), which means that we'll probably be one water short. Still a profitable gamble, though. And who get's the credit for it? Da Boss, of course. Oh well.
In other work related stuff, we must have set something of a local record the other day when three neighbours and I pulled down and cleared away 1.3k's of fenceline and erected a brandspanker in its place - before lunch. Pretty good, huh? Impressed? I was.
Remember the widdle baa lambs? They've gone, but the ewes remain, being supplementary fed.
It's been so dry around here that Da Boss has been shopping around for a lease block in adjoining districts so that he can de-stock this place altogether and use the lease block for feedlot backgrounding.
Speaking of the feedlot, guess what I have to do this morning? Give up? Ok. I have to go up and draft off a couple of steers who have swollen dicks, give them each a few injections and..., here comes the good part..., rub some ointment on the swollen parts.
Apparently, the Sepps played a game of footy today
Miami, Jan. 21, 1979 -- Hollywood Henderson says Terry Bradshaw would have trouble spelling Terry Bradshaw if he was spotted the C and the T. Is that or is that not the single best opening line to a sports article. Ever. Cheers to Scott Chaffin for the link.
Who united all those nations? It'll take me hours to get them untangled
As an act of public benefaction and to dispel any unwarranted prejudice against persons of different ethnic origin to yourself, I have decided to publish the results of my decades-long research into a comparison of the various nationalities of the world and how persons from each nationality rate as employees. This study, although incomplete, as are all studies into this subject, is detailed and flawless in its findings. I know that it will be of benefit to you.
Kiwis: Drink a lot. Smoke more dope than Bob Marley. Usually happy, competent workers. Indigenous Kiwis can all play guitar. Bar none.
Poms: Drink a lot. Smoke more dope than Bob Marley. If somebody else pays for it. Good workers, although Northerners are to be preferred over Southerners, who are usually slow, if persistent, plodders. Contrary to popular myth, don't whinge much, although when they start...
Paddies: Drink a lot, even when compared to other nations who Drink A Lot. Boisterous. Smoke more dope than Bob Marley. Sometimes they pay for it. Eat a lot of spuds. Seriously. Hard workers, usually highly skilled, can be confrontational.
Jocks: Drink a lot. Not as prone to smoking dope. Contrary to popular mythology, usually generous. Keen on a blue. Sometimes need a poke with a sharp object to get going.
Dais: Drink a lot. That's all.
Frogs: Don't drink so much. There is a generational change in Frogs; they start off fairly easygoing (and lazy) but end up hardworking and arrogant. Must be all that pastry.
Krauts: Medium drinkers. Plodders at work. Resentful of instruction.
Dagos: Plonkos. (Very) Hard workers. Given to work-place politics. Don't turn your back.
Nips: Never observed drinking, therefore; DO NOT TRUST. Given to feigning a lack of English when comprehension would mean hard work. Do not employ.
Chinks: Drinking level variable. Genial, hardworking, suited to repetitive tasks.
Canucks: Pretensions to serious drinking. Whinge a lot, especially about being mistaken for Sepps. Good workers for all that.
Sepps: Ambitious drinkers. Don't seem to need external sources of income. Only employed example in the study came from Texas. His name was Tom. In a display of that dry, ironic humour that we Australians are justifiably famous for, we called him Texas Tom. Nicest bloke I ever met, except me and you (If we've met). Worked like a Trojan and drank like me. Laughed all day. If he wasn't ugly and a bloke, I would've married him.
Serbs/Croats (help me out with a colloquialism here): World class drinkers. Blokes are good, if unimaginative workers who need to be supervised. Women don't need supervision.
Romanians: Drink a lot. Are all female. Are all stunners. Not a moral between the lot of them. When I retire, I'm going to live in Romania. And die happy. They are good workers, too.
Somalis: Non-drinkers and therefore untrustworthy. If you have Somali workers, take a stick with you. You can line them up with it to see if they are moving.
Philipinos: Novice drinkers. Are all female. Almost all stunners. Inconveniently high level of moral vigour. Very happy people. Good workers. Four stars.
Fuzzy-wuzzies: Drink a lot. Happy, except sometimes when they drink a lot. Good, if eraatic, workers.
Polynesians (Pick an island, any island): Drink a lot. Smoke more dope than Bob and Rita Marley. Work like three mere mortals. Editors choice (bro).
South Americans: Only one example lives in captivity; a Brazilian female of about thirty footy seasons. Drinks moderately, copulates to the point of exhaustion - has a rest and does it again. On this basis, recommended for employment even if you don't have any work that needs doing.
Israelis: Minimalist drinkers. Severley lacking in the humour department. Very good workers.
Other middle easterners: Non drinkers, which seems to make them cranky. Good, if moody, workers.
Scandinavians: Drinking level extremely variable. Absurdly good skin - would make excellent wallets if you run out of work. Women prone to wearing not much - recommended.
Russians/ex Soviet republics: Don't exist.
Oi Oi Oi: Drink a lot. Exceptional workers. Women are all beautiful, men all have large penises (penii?) Witty and urbane, an ornament to any workplace, but beware, because of their genetic superiority it will not take them long to supplant your place in the company if they so choose.
Never let it be said that I'm not doing my bit for internationasl relations.
A lot of trendy inner urban types consider people in The Bush™ to be a collective noun of big sooky boys, always whinging about how tough life is and how valiantly they have to struggle to overcome a lack of services and so on and so forth. A lot of people in The Bush™ think that trendy inner urban types are a collective noun of smartarse over-educated under-experienced oxygen thieves who would have been better off being shot into a sock. They're both right. I'll start on the Urban Collective:
I had a problem with my internet connection. A dialogue box came up telling me that the satellite dish had probably shifted because the signal strength had dropped. Then it changed its mind and decided that the signal strength was ok after all, but the transmitter doodah wasn't talking to the network control doodah. I got up on the roof and could find nothing wrong, so I consulted the call centre experts in Mumbai or wherever it is (I've had to call them five times in nearly three years and each time it's been an Indian. The call centre must be over there somewhere. ) He sorted it out for me. It's his job, he's trained to do it. I'm not trained to do it, so I didn't try to tell him how I thought that it should be done. Yet most trendy inner urban types who wouldn't have spent more than a week in total on farms, most of which would be at B'n'Bs, don't hesitate to tell rural people how their particular business should be operated, how their sector of the industry has incorrectly positioned itself and how the industry as a whole should really be scrapped anyway, because the [...] industry just isn't feasible long term in this country. Without having a lick of experience, knowledge, understanding or empathy.
Then they will tell you that rural people are leaches, draining away their precious tax dollars in subsides and handouts, conveniently overlooking the facts that;
a) Australia has the lowest level of farm subsidies (both direct and indirect) in the developed world, and
b) Rural people pay the exact same percentage of tax in return for only a fraction of the services.
Which leads me to rural whingers. I've lived in a lot more isolated places than this, but I will use my present home as an example. It is 145ks to the nearest casualty room. It is the same distance to the nearest secondary school. It is nearly 500ks to an obstetrician. There is no garbage collection. No FTA television unless you invest in a satellite dish. Same for Broadband internet, and then it's slower than ADSL. Urban people pay for water to cover the cost of infrastructure. Rural people pay for water and provide and maintain the infrastructure.
You know what? I don't care. If you don't like it here, move. It isn't difficult. There is no law or moral compulsion that forces you to live where you do, or to make the rest of the community shell out for urban conveniences in a rural setting. Stop putting your hand out every time that circumstances change. Of course, all of this could apply equally to Aboriginal people who choose to live on tribal lands.
But anyway, on to the thing that inspired this little rant. For the last few days, there's been an old 4wd Toyota come chugging through here at about 5.30 in the morning and chugging back at about 7 at night. After some deft detective work (a.k.a. asking the boss) I found out that it's one of the neighbour's kids. They live a couple of properties over and the kid drives through them and leaves his ute in the bush at one of our gates. He gets a lift from there into Dirranbandi. In Dirran he catches a bus to school in St. George. The process is reversed at night. Makes for abot a fifteen hour day just going to school. If I were his Dad and I couldn't afford boarding school and the hostel in St. Geoarge was full, or closed, I'd be getting a job a bit closer to town. I know one thing, if I was the kid I'd be fairly pissed off if I got home from school and Mum wanted me to do the dishes or mow the lawn.
I read Post Secret most weeks. Quiet a lot of the postcards are fairly obviously contrived, but it remains a rich cultural experience. Sometimes, though, it's more than that; sometimes it get's you where you live.
